From Edge City to City?

Abstract

Problem, research strategy and findings This century’s planning challenge is one of retrofitting suburbia. As relatively compact suburban forms, edge cities may be the most amenable to retrofit. In the 30 years since the publication of Garreau’s Edge City, to what extent and in what ways have planning intentions changed to favor greater urbanity in edge cities? Across 10 indicators, we examined planning intentions covering 117 of 123 edge cities identified in 1991. Content analysis of plans revealed the mixed intentions for individual edge cities and for different edge cities across metropolitan regions, but also strong and consistent intentions for a large minority of edge cities we label cities in the making. Our findings underline the limited appeal of the concept to the public, politicians, and planners. Takeaways for practice Across a range of indicative intentions, planning frameworks can be strengthened with a view to fostering greater urbanity in edge cities. Plans covering edge cities continue to lack the spatial and numeric specificity that would help ensure better implementation of stated intentions. Plans covering edge cities could usefully have a more joined-up or consistent approach across different but interrelated intentions.